United States

Protests broke out in Minnesota's Twin Cities the night of June 16, after the acquittal of a police officer in the notorious slaying of Black motorist Philando Castile—a St. Paul school cafeteria worker who was 32 at the time of his death. As I write, the first arrests are taking place, as thousands of demonstrators attempt to shut down Interstate 94. Black Lives Matter protesters are again mobilizing in cities across the country.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has called on congressional leaders to overturn federal protections on medical marijuana that have been in place since 2014, according to a May letter that the Washington Post published June 13. The letter, addressed to the Senate majority and minority leaders as well as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, called for repeal of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which bars the Justice Department from using federal funds to prevent named states "from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana."

Amid fast-escalating nightmarish narco-violence in Brazil comes disconcerting word that police in Rio de Janeiro seized 60 assault rifles hidden in a shipment of swimming-pool heating equipment that had just arrived on a flight from Miami. Pulse News Agency reported June 2 that the AK-47s and AR-10s were discovered in the cargo terminal of Rio's international airport. Photos of the haul showed weapons in the foam packaging they were flown in.

Portending an unprecedented showdown with federal power, California's State Assembly on June 1 approved a bill that would bar state and local law police from cooperating with the DEA and other federal agencies in cannabis enforcement efforts, unless compelled to do so by a court order. "Prohibiting our state and local law enforcement agencies from expending resources to assist federal intrusion of California-compliant cannabis activity reinforces...the will of our state's voters who overwhelmingly supported Proposition 64,” Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), lead author of the bill, told the Los Angeles Times when it was still pending.

Oops, he did it again. Acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg reiterated his oft-voiced opinion on May 25 that "marijuana is not medicine." The Washington Examiner reports that he told an audience at a clinic in Cleveland: "If it turns out that there is something in smoked marijuana that helps people, that's awesome. I will be the last person to stand in the way of that... But let's run it through the Food and Drug Administration process, and let's stick to the science on it."

Florida is rapidly shaping up as a test case in whether the term "medical marijuana" necessarily has to include actual herbaceous cannabis. On May 15, the state's Health Department ordered Quincy-based Trulieve dispensary to stop selling a "whole flower" product—officially intended for use in vaporizers but which can of course also be smoked. Trulieve just last week began sales of product dubbed “Entourage,”—named for the so-called "entourage effect," the synergistic workings of the various compounds in the actual cannabis flower. product meant to be used in the Volcano vaporizer, last week, reports Orlando Weekly. The Health Department's cease-and-desist letter came after local media reports about the sales of Entourage.

Oregon voted to legalize cannabis way back in November 2014, but promises of state coffers filled with canna-dollars are apparently being held up by an arcane bureaucratic logjam. Newsweek just noted a May 5 report from Oregon's KWG News finding that the state has brought in close to $75 million in cannabis tax revenue since the start of 2016—yet not a penny has gone to actually closing Salem's yawning $1.6 billion budget deficit.